The 26 January in Canberra will be celebrated with an Invasion Day Rally and March assembling from

noon Friday 26 January 2018
in Garema Place, Civic ACT

The March will cross Commonwealth Bridge and proceed to the Aboriginal Tent Embassy for a speak out and a smoking ceremony at the Sacred Fire there.

"Keep the date and change the name" is how rally spokesperson Chris "Peltherre" Tomlins, Arrernte man from Alice Springs, is saying it.

"The 26 January 1788 is the day the first shots of the British war upon Aboriginal people were fired, the opening salvo of a war that continues to this day," said Mr Tomlins.

"From the brutalisation of black youth in detention, the murder of men and women in custody, the theft of children from families, the destruction of Aboriginal lands to feed corporate profits, the apartheid NT Intervention, the forced removal of communities, First Nations on this continent are under heavy assault from a new wave of dispossession, but the fightback is also growing."

"Let's keep the public holiday as a day of honest history, remembrance, lament and atonement.

"Let those who would glorify white settler triumphalism, go search for another public holiday to wave their Union Jacks," said Mr Tomlins.

"They may find one when an Australian Republic is created that accepts Aboriginal sovereignty as its foundation and starting point."